


Mirror

by orphan_account



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 7x16, Carl dies, Dark, Fxxked up, M/M, Rick's hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-20 00:05:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11324520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Negan makes good on his threats. Rick falls in love with him anyway.Similar to Deft.





	Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omeero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omeero/gifts).



> Hope you like it Omeero - I know it's not precisely what you asked for but I definitely tried! E for Effort!
> 
> Thank you for providing me with this idea ;)

 

 

 

Everything is fucked. Because that's what life is. It's a never ending merry-go-round of pressing needs that will never be met. And there is only one thing you truly have, maybe only one thing you truly need and that is yourself.

That's Negan's philosophy anyway.

He realizes he's a cold, hard fuck. Was probably always gonna be, thanks to the apocalypse.

It doesn't mean he enjoys what he does.

He doesn't enjoy the way Carl's head cracks like a watermelon. And yeah, it takes one hit. It's a punishment, pure and simple. Cause and effect. If Negan were being honest with himself he should have killed the boy the first time he came around to the Sanctuary. The kid's damn dangerous.

But he isn't dangerous now, lying on the grass, blood spilling out into the hungry soil.

Rick does cry then. Sobs sudden, can't even see through his tears. There's snot in the next minute, like that first night and the image Rick makes of himself is degrading, dehumanizing, painful. Negan crouches down and chuckles at him, knocks him over with barely a push and Rick folds to the ground. It's graceful, _fucking_ beautiful, how he collapses with all his angles and curves.

When he takes Rick's hands he would rather use a knife. Some sadistic part of him would like to see the pain light in Rick's eyes as their gazes locked. But that's missing the point. It's a ritual, a public ritual. Negan is not Negan without the brutality of Lucille. He is not dependable and invincible and terrifying unless his people see him as such. 

He is the apex predator solely because he wishes it, because the others let him. And they let him because, even though they are under him on the food chain, he provides a way for them to survive. Predictable rules, social norms and mores. There is no room for unexpected surprises, special treatment or threats to his establishment.

No special treatment.

Negan doesn't expect _Carl_ and _Rick's hands_ to hurt so fucking bad.

If he's a little breathless, if his voice is a little dry when he addresses Simon, no one points it out.

 

 

 

"We're not fucking monsters!" Negan says, with his teeth bared. He paces the pulpit like a wolf. 

The Alexandrians cower in their church booths. The ones that are left anyway. 

"It seems to me that you have a lot of empty houses on your hands." Negan continues, bitingly, "And by golly, good neighbours that we fucking are, we are going to help populate your cozy little neighbourhood. You know, keep the crime out. Like the fucking neighbourhood watch committee!"

No one has much to say to that. They cry silently in their seats and that is all.

Negan sets his mind to sorting out which Saviours will settle in Alexandria and which will go back to the Sanctuary. Negan doesn't plan to stay but then he passes Rick's house. Gets a scene like a vision - of himself and Carl and Judith drinking lemonade.

He beckons Simon over.

"Rick still with the Doc?" His voice sounds worn to his own ears, as if the performance at the church has knocked the showmanship out of him. He tells himself it's because it's tiring, performing for God.

"No. We dumped him at his house. He's not in any condition to run tonight, lost too much blood." Simon's mouth quirks upwards and usually Negan would mirror the expression because after all, he performs for the devil too. Tonight he finds he can't.

"They find his baby?"

"What?" Simon asks, blank and dumb.

"His little fucking girl." He clarifies.

"Uh, no. There were no kids in the house. None on the streets."

It's a bad sign. It means they are in league with another community who was willing to take the children in.

"Find out where they are."

"Should I work Rick the prick over when he wakes up? Find out for _sure_?" The slimy smile on Simon's face makes Negan twitch towards his bat.

"No."

Negan _isn't_ a monster. He doesn't enjoy the things he has to do to maintain order. It isn't his fault that people require a show. That's what he tells himself.

Negan shacks up in Rick's house that night. Picks the man up gently from where he's been dropped haphazardly on the floor, lays him out on Carl's bed because Rick doesn't have one. He brushes the dirt off him, wets a cloth and attempts to soothe his tortured brow.

Negan doesn't leave Alexandria for _months_.

 

 

 

Negan's wives stay at the Sanctuary. It isn't a conscious decision. Only there are already so many thoughts crowded in his mind and there isn't room for them too.

The first time Rick wakes up in Carl's room Negan swears his own heart stutters in his chest.

Rick opens his eyes slowly, peaceful, and he's been crying in his sleep. He reaches what used to be a hand up to swipe the hair out of his face and the sore newly dressed stump leaves a trail of blood across Rick's forehead and cheek.

"Where's Carl?" Rick asks and Negan cannot take his calm, heart breakingly beautiful, gaze. 

Negan swallows thickly, twists his mouth into a cruel sneer, _performs_.

"He's dead. I killed him." He says it low, sick and dangerous.

Rick's throat works uselessly at that, as if he's trying to say something but nothing comes out.

"I don't know if you remember Rick" Negan whispers lowly, "but I told him that you let me do it."

It seems pertinent that Negan lay out his sins for Rick's inspections if the man isn't going to _remember_.

"The blood just poured out of him. Skull sounded like thunder when it cracked."

Rick starts shaking, he's clenching his teeth, his face is tight with anger. It _satisfies_ Negan. Rick tries to grab Negan's collar then but his stumps are useless and ill-equipped. They uselessly bump stamps of blood onto Negan's white t-shirt. Rick's eyes fill with tears.

"It was a punishment Rick, for your disobedience." It's a goad, and the last straw as it turns out.

Rick goes mad, possessed. Strains towards Negan with his whole body, tries to _fight_ him. 

Negan chuckles darkly in his ear. Holds Rick down, fingers bruisingly tight, as they struggle. The bed rocks and thumps against the wall with the movement.

There's a comic lying on Carl's desk. Something stupid about superheroes and the idea that someone can save someone else is preposterous. Somehow the bright colors and badly drawn figures bring it home.

All Negan can think of is the kid's stupid fucking voice singing 'You are my sunshine' and his childish attachment to that Sheriff's hat. Like it was a superhero costume of his own.

Negan feels tears slide down his face.

"Rick" He says, voice soft. Rick doesn't hear him and Negan's glad for that. Rick's twisting wildly, thrashing, and Negan easily pushes a hand down on his pelvis to make him stop. He smacks Negan in the face with his stump. Negan can feel the wet blood.

"I don't regret it Rick." He says and Rick's brokenness is laid out before him like a buffet. Hitching breaths and bloodshot eyes and pain so exquisite it's like a shot of adrenaline to Negan's heart. Paradoxically makes Negan want to get _closer_.

He rolls off of Rick then, lies back and lets the man do whatever he's going to do.

Negan will deny he sobs. It isn't fucking appropriate.

Rick's too out of his mind to do much damage. But, he tries.

Oh how he tries. 

When he's exhausted himself and they're both covered in blood Negan turns Rick over and manhandles him into being the little spoon.

It's fucked that he does. Negan tries to convince himself it's a power play. 

 

 

 

It's Arat who finds them the next morning, kicks at Negan's shoe until he's awake.

"Sir?" she says blandly.

Negan's aware of what it looks like. They're both fucking messes. Blood, tears and sweat.

"I'm staying." Negan says. Doesn't need to think twice. "I'll need you to take point at the Sanctuary."

"What about Simon?"

"Fuck Simon." Negan says tiredly. "Can't a man bask in his victory for a little while?"

"They're burning the bodies today. Thought you should know." Arat says and then leaves.

Negan thinks of Carl and wars with himself, torn between the urge to preserve the boy's body and give him a proper burial and the more pressing duty of needing to remain aloof.

By the time Negan gets outside it's already too late and he has to remind himself it's a good thing.

The bodies have long since turned to ash.

 

 

 

When Rick wakes the second time he looks _haunted_. Negan can tell he remembers just from the look on his face. His eyes are big, dark and sunken, in his pale face. He doesn't talk, just stares unnervingly at Negan, worn and hollow.

Tears leak from his eyes but for all that Rick doesn't emote. His face is as still as if he's been cut from cool marble. A tragic hero whose painful beauty transcends the ages.

Rick cries and cries. Negan doesn't think he's ever going to stop. 

It's not just hours, it's _days_. Until there's nothing left for his tear ducts to pump out. When the tears dry up after the first day is when hurt dry sobs begin to wrack his frame, he curls in on himself and Negan has to forcefully straighten him - has to leave bruises on his skin for it to happen. He has to tilt Rick's mouth up firmly with a hand to make him take water. Even then Rick doesn't drink it. It flows from his mouth, gurgles out from hiccuping interruptions. 

It's three days, four nights in when Rick finally cries himself to sleep in Negan's arms. Negan can only tell by the muted tone of the sobs and his closed, listless eyes. 

When he wakes, to Negan's tired and bloodshot gaze, Rick's eyes are puffy, irritated and red. He doesn't try to hurt Negan, doesn't try to fight back. Instead Rick stares, wounding, into what feels like Negan's soul.

It occurs to Negan then, as he's yanking Rick's head back roughly by his hair to bare his throat - and Rick's countenance is unchanged, that he doesn't have to _act_ anymore _._ Not for Rick.

So he doesn't.

 

 

 

 He shows no fucking restraint. At all.

 

 

 

" _Sorry. Sorry. Sorry_." Negan whispers over and over against Rick's skin. It isn't right for him to say, especially knowing he would do it again if he had to.

Rick's broken and Negan's comfort seeps into the cracks of his soul.

He doesn't just let Negan nuzzle at him, he actively embraces Negan back.

"Rick." Negan whimpers into the collar of Rick's shirt. 

Rick strokes a stump down his back, a hazy pain blooming on his face.

"My hands hurt." He says seriously before looking at his stumps.

Rick coolly tries to disguise the tremor in his arms as horror rises in his eyes.

It's shock. Negan has been taking solace in Rick's _shock_.

Negan tries to move back but Rick reaches for him, makes a terrified little noise in his throat.

"It's okay Rick." Negan says, and leans into Rick where he's holding his arms out for a hug.

Nothing about the situation is okay.

 

 

 

 

Negan thinks about leaving Rick. He knows Rick's lover has fled to Hilltop, that that is where the children are - and he should probably do something about that.

It'd be a strategic fallacy though - to leave Rick now.

It isn't like Rick won't snap out of it eventually. 

 

 

 

Negan loses count of the days he spends wrapped in Rick's arms. Rick's tears have seemed to dry up just as Negan's have decided to let loose. Like some fucked up game of 'tag, you're it'. 

Rick only cries in his sleep.

He's in mourning though, every second of every hour. Every curve of him belies the fact, announces it. And Negan is comforting him and how fucking _sick_ is that? 

Negan is letting Rick comfort him too and that's worse.

It goes too far.

Negan cradles Rick's head in his hand, brushes his fingers down his face, down his throat, down his arm. The fingers stop gently at the wrist, dance lightly over the healing flesh.

Negan makes a very fatal mistake.

He kisses Rick. Wants to wash the sadness off his face.

Every mistake after that is worst than the last.

He makes them in sequence. Mistake after mistake - damningly intentional and he could stop, knows he could, but he doesn't. Each button undone by his fingers is a mistake. Each huffed breath that leaves his mouth while he doesn't actively retreat is a mistake. 

It's not just a moment of weakness. It's a myriad of them, assembling into something monstrous, something that will crush both of them in it's jaws. 

Rick comes apart underneath him in an entirely new way.

 

 

 

It's taking advantage. It's not like Negan doesn't know that. And it makes him sick to his fucking stomach the way Rick _lets_ him. Lets him curl his fingers softly into Rick's hair. Lets him bathe him with gentle touch and redress all his wounds in tender benediction.

Rick even lets him draw soft moans from his mouth as Negan rocks into him maddeningly slow.

Negan isn't thinking about why it doesn't make sense. Because nothing fucking makes sense. 

He shouldn't want Rick.

Rick - who is a constant reminder of the culmination of the ugliness of his own soul and that one thing he should.not.have.done.

 

 

 

Arat calls for him and Negan delegates. He knows he needs to deal with business eventually.

A little longer, is what he tells himself. 

A little longer and then he'll deal with business. A little longer and he'll face the fact that he is as bad as those rapists he professes to hate. 

Worse.

 

 

 

When Rick is well enough to roam the house - and does he even recognize it Negan wonders? with all the colors Negan has changed and the things he has added and the things he has _taken away_ \- Rick is usually found in the kitchen.

Gods knows why. He can't do anything useful in there. 

Negan finds him one day and he is doing - something. His wrists are moving like he ought to be doing something. Like he's conducting a symphony with invisible hands.

He brings out a plate, pressing it clumsily between his stumps on its thin edges. He dishes it up with stacks of air so precise Negan feels like he can actually see them.

And his fucking _smile_. It's gorgeous and it makes Negan's heart thwip pathetically in his chest. So distracting that for a moment Negan doesn't think about the oddness of what he's seeing. Until Rick opens his mouth.

"Do you like that Carl?" His voice is bereft of grief. He sounds _amused_. 

Rick smiles down at the chair that's been drawn back, eyes low as if a little boy is in it. He looks at Negan then, who had thought he hadn't been noticed. His smile slips a fraction, then returns.

For a second all Negan feels is the vicious betrayal. And has Rick been holding out for this? Holding out for this hard hit that is impossible for Negan to _take_? 

He sees red.

 

 

 

He's determined to make Rick see it too.

 

 

 

He knocks Rick to the floor. Punches him bloody with three strikes. Hears Rick's nose crack as he cries out in pain.

" _I killed him. Bashed his fucking skull in Rick. There ain't no Carl no more._ "

Negan's not performing then, and he'd always thought it would be better if he could _just_ \- but it's not. It's worse. It's damning.

"What?" Rick says weakly with shock, hurt bleeding into the edges of his voice like wet blood on paper.

He grabs a fistful of Rick's hair and pulls up, intends on slamming Rick's head back down. His hands falter. 

"C-Carl's right - right here...." Rick murmurs but when he turns his head from Negan's grasp to look up at the chair his eyes go wide, begin to fill with tears. "He was right here."

He sounds dazed, pained. Then everything changes.

Rick's eyes fill with fire, his brow sets and his jaw stiffens. And it's so much like how he was _before_ that it catches Negan up short. He crawls off Rick, unsteady. Wants, irrationally, to escape.

He makes himself stay. Makes himself look at the bloody, broken man he's torn apart.

"He's not dead." Rick says, with real hate in his voice.

 

 

 

The truth makes Rick sick. Hollow-eyed. Whenever Negan goes to touch him he retreats from the space leaving Negan grasping thin air. Rick runs himself down. Sobs at random intervals and bites into his forearm so hard it bleeds and festers.

They are dealing with it and that's what matters. 

_They._

 

 

 

It's not the only thing Negan has to deal with.

Dwight stages a coup. Kills Arat and a quarter of the Sanctuary. 

Simon retaliates and kills the rest.

Saviors.

The name is supposed to _mean_ something. 

 

 

 

He only realizes he's left Rick alone too long when he comes back to find blood and puke all over the living room floor.

An empty jug of javex is tipped on its side and the smell of bleach burns.

Rick is in the corner - red rimmed eyes and listless, slumped posture. He's staring down at the mess.

"It didn't work." He explains shortly.

 

 

 

"Oh please." Rick breathlessly sighs under him. Arches up delicately as Negan pets down into him hard. Negan runs a hand up the side of Rick's face and leans down to kiss him.

The moment is lost though when Rick squeaks and shoves at Negan, ineffectual. Negan goes anyway. Pulls himself up and out and off. Muscles taut as he works himself down. Reins himself in.

"Carl," Rick begins, eyes on the door, cheeks coloring, "it's late. You should be in bed."

 Rick has the sheet drawn up around his ears. Negan leans in to place a chaste kiss on his throat.

"I'll tuck him in tonight Rick. You get some rest."

Negan leaves the room, closes the door, slides down and settles his weight at the bottom of it. Buries his face in his hands.

He doesn't cry because Rick can always tell when he's been crying.

 

 

 

Later he slips into bed and Rick loops an arm around him.

These days, they both cry in their sleep.

Neither of them mention it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
